


Sugar Stacks on Main Street

by cunttwatula (mindlessadri)



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Restaurant, Fluff, M/M, No Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-01
Updated: 2015-01-01
Packaged: 2018-03-04 17:40:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3076556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mindlessadri/pseuds/cunttwatula
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On the left is a pancake shop and on the right is a waffle house. On the left is Jean. On the right is Armin. Sometimes they stare at each other from across the street</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sugar Stacks on Main Street

**Author's Note:**

> This is how I spent New Years. I wrote the last hour of 2014 and the first hour of 2015. So this is my last fanfiction of 2014 and first of 2015.  
> Because it's late I would expect errors. I'll reread in the morning to correct anything I missed.

A summer breeze blows light, like a lovers touch, in the early morning over Main Street in Santa Cruz. It carries with it the scent of the vast ocean and pine. They know it well. Every morning they see each other on opposite sides of the street. Neither of them intentionally let’s their gaze linger and it’s only when they're caught that either of them realize they were even staring.

Armin walks on the right side of the street going west and Jean walks on the left. Armin walks from the small neighborhood located behind Main Street. The houses are all little squares with soft grass and small driveways. They’re old, to say the least. But it’s enough. After all it’s just him and his grandpa. He knows little about the boy across the street. He only knows that in the winter he likes to wear a brown bomber style jacket, the only thing he brings to work with him is his apron and it’s colored slightly off white from countless sauces and batters, and he works at Stacks. Stacks is a pancake shop. The old and homey type. It still has sticky vinyl booths and stained countertops. Armin assumes he’s a chef.

Armin, himself, is a waiter at Sugar. They’re a waffle house right across Main Street from Stacks. Admittedly, they are eons more modern; they have a crepe bar and free wifi and a cross of fifty’s classic with hipster newness decor. As he rounds the corner onto Main Street and sees the guy coming out of the bus depot. Armin frowns. It’s not like today would have been any different from all the other days. But, he did always feel like something could happen if they were walking parallel on the streets. As if the cosmic energy was just better for something.

His heart thumps in his throat when he notices the other man on the otherwise deserted street slows his stride. And maybe he just glanced behind himself to look at Armin. He feels the red on his cheeks before he confirms it in the next storefront window. He feels suddenly nervous. He unzips the light red sweater he’s wearing to stave off the five o’clock chill. He immediately regrets it. One: because it’s cold. Two: Armin doesn’t think he could be more obvious. Three: He decides in that moment his olive green shirt is disgusting and he looks like an olive as the color would suggest. Deciding it’s already done he fluffs his hair then instantly pats it down while wrinkling his nose and asking himself why the fuck?

A moment later they are walking parallel to each other. Armin chances a glance to the opposite side of the street. The boy’s tan from days spent at the beach. He has a surfer’s body. The biceps, golden and firm, are a giveaway. Tearing his eyes away he catches the man’s side glance. Armin would swear he smirked at him.

His pulse thrums rhythmically in his chest and he’s caught off guard when the guy pushes open the door to Stacks. It’s then Armin realizes he walked past the door to Sugar. He pauses and just watches the door to Stacks close. It feels like the cosmos actually want to let something happen with this daily routine. Armin jumps and a shiver runs up his spine when behind him there’s pounding on the windowed storefront of Sugar. Connie’s pressed up against the glass making the most disgusting face and getting saliva on the inside of the widow. Armin’s hand clutches his chest until the suddenness subsides. He’s not subtle or remorseful about how he storms inside fists clenched and face red like his shoes.

“Connie! You - you,” Armin’s flustered and it shows. Connie only tries to hide his laughter. “You butt munch!” Connie is a busboy. He’s almost always late so it would figure the day the universe almost made something happen it’d also sent Connie to ruin it.  He’s not so bad. He laughs and keeps up morale when they’re swamped which is a fulltime job considering they’re busy daily.

From behind him he hears kissing noises and turns to see Ymir leaning out the window to the kitchen. Her face is scrunched and a smirk just barely hints thats she’s poking fun. She’s the cook. Most people wouldn’t believe it considering her sharp angular features made her look the part of a dirty business woman or a model.

Armin gawks open and embarrassed. “You guys suck!”

He fumes through the morning meeting.

* * *

Jean lives forty minutes away by bus. His family has a rather substantial size lot with a decent sized house in the rolling hills between Santa Cruz and Watsonville. Every morning he walks down the slope and gets on the four thirty bus. It takes forever to get to Main Street because there are so many stops along the backstreet that follows the freeway. He could of had a more direct route that went by freeway but then he’d have to walk farther to the stop.

He also could have gotten a job in Watsonville where his mother runs a surprisingly well off mexican restaurant so he had a ride. Jean loves his mom and not having to ride daily with her helps it stay that way.

Pancakes were easy. His were always soft on the inside with crispy edges. That’d been his interview at Stacks. They had given him batter and a spatula. The owners didn’t even interview the next guy.

Stacks was also a half mile from the Boardwalk and some pretty decent surf spots. They let him keep his gear in the back on the condition he never drop a pancake. He never did.

Most days he would see the blond boy. They look about the same age, Jean thinks, and something always feels light and fluffy in his chest when he catches the guy sneaking a peak.

Jean knows hardly anything about him. He knows he was a server and he only knows that from the times he walks away from the stove to serve the counter. He looks across the street and there's blond is; smiling like sunshine or something equally gross to make a comparison to. He figures he probably has a great name. Something that rolls and fells good on the lips. He looks smart, too. Jean wonders what kind of smart. Literature? History? Math? Science? And his hair is gold like he spends a lot of time at the beach. He’s willing to bet he does.

“I’m going to do it.” Jean announces one day in the middle of the morning rush.

Annie stops short on her way to a center table and snaps her head to him. “Whoop-de-doo.” Her voice is flat and unenthusiastic much like her outer personality. She seems harsh but she’s really just - well harsh but people got use to it and chose to focus on her softer parts.

She continues on and Krista speaks up with her soft and gentle voice. “Jean, honey, you’ve been saying that since the olive shirt day.”

“Olive shirt day?” Reiner decides to join the conversation.

Annie sighs as she come to grab food from the window. “Jean came in talking about how the kid took off his sweater while walking to show off.”

“Hey!” Jean corrects. “He wasn’t showing off. He just wanted to look his best.”

Jean feels them simultaneously roll their eyes at him. He shrugs. “Krista!” She jumps and almost loses her grip on the plates she’s carrying. Knowing he has her attention he continues. “I need your help.”

“Why me?”

“Because you're the nicest looking one here.”

She shakes her head gently. “Why don’t you do it?”

“Because he seems to have forgotten his balls everyday of the last eight months,” Annie quips without looking up from the table she’s serving.

The restaurant laughs, at least the regulars do. “No, Annie.” He levels his gaze at her. “I can’t, as the cook on duty, leave my post to go to the enemy restaurant.”

“But you can lock lips with their server?” Reiner laughs as he pushes the swinging door to the kitchen open.

Jean’s blushing a little and he can feel the way Krista is smiling at him. “Maybe just lunch or something,” he mumbles.

“I’ll help.” She’s standing on her tip toes as she reaches through the serving window to ruffle Jean’s hair. “Good karma and all,” she laments.

* * *

The rush has just finished up and Armin is helping clean tables so Connie can make a Frozen Hot Chocolate for this cute brunette that keeps showing up. When she’s there the two of them chat and Armin isn’t even too upset that Connie seems to drift in and out of work. He’s replacing the syrup rack on the table and flicking away a few stray crumbs when across the street he sees a small blond girl come out of Stacks. She doesn’t look reluctant, despite the fact she’s practically being pushed out by a broad blond fellow.

She’s holding a paper takeout bag and rocking back and forth on the balls of her feet as she waits for traffic to clear. She jogs across the street cutely, Armin supposes.

Armin is sure she’s going to veer one direction but, no, she pushes the door to Sugar open and smiles at him sweetly. “This is for you.” She holds the bag out in front of her and Armin takes it slowly.

He’s about to ask what it is when Ymir comes out of the back. “Connie stop making googly -” Whatever Ymir was about to say dies on her tongue and she stops to stand dumbly on the floor. “Um,” she tries. Then Armin sees the one thing he’s never in his wildest dreams would have consider; Ymir blushes. Her smile is easy and she scratches at the fine hairs on the back of her neck. It’s so bizarre even Connie goes silent. “Hey.”

“Hey.” The blond girl says. They stare at each other for a solid twenty seconds and Armin resists the urge to hide his face. “Right,” she says slowly. “So that’s for you. I’m going back to work now.”

The bell chimes overhead and Ymir crouches behind the counter and wails. Armin actually thinks she’s adorable for a second instead of fierce.

Looking away from Ymir Armin looks across the street and can see the girl standing dazedly facing their counter. He wonders if  she’s listening to the boy Armin walks with in the morning.

Armin sets the bag on the table and takes out the carryout box inside. Popping the top he’s not sure if he’s nervous or flattered. Inside is a single pancake. It’s shaped like a dolphin like the person who made it did the outline then filled it in. Armin can’t help but smile when he notices that there are little blueberries in the pancake. He almost doesn’t want to eat it.

“What’s that?” Connie calls from the counter. Ymir has since disappeared to the kitchen.

Armin turns to meet his gaze. “Dolphin pancake. It has blueberries.”

“He means the writing,” the brunette girl says sipping her treat.

he scrunches his eyebrows together and looks back the pancake and notices the inside of the top of the box has sharpie writing. JEAN 831-555-5555.

Armin gasps and covers his mouth with both hands. He looks back as if Connie will confirm that life is real but then he’s looking across the street. Through the window he sees the boy - Jean? - leaning over the counter pulling at his hair like he’s nervous. Then he looks up and across the street and catches Armin’s eyes.

His smile is perfect and warm and Armin feels like he might melt into the floorboards.

Jean waves to him with that goofy smile on his face and Armin offers his own shy awkward smile and raises his hand in a little wave.

Armin hears a clatter in the kitchen and takes his gift to the back to find Ymir hard at work on a castle made of waffles. The toothpicks had fell to the ground and that had been the noise.

“Connie!” She bellows a moment later.

He comes back like somebody died and Ymir shoves the plate in his face. “You.” Ymir’s face is serious and her voice just slightly manic. “Take this across the street to that cute blond girl. Don’t tell her it’s from me.”

Connie raises a doubtful eyebrow. “I’m pretty sure she’s going to know it’s from you.”

Ymir’s gaze prevents him from saying anything else and he scurries out of the kitchen.

* * *

Jean frowns when the blond kid disappears from the window with a concerned look on his face. Maybe it had been too much? But he’d smiled at Jean. Right?

Krista comes back dazed and Jean doesn’t understand why. He can get hardly anything out of her.

Jean decides the guy had probably just had to get back to work and so should he. It isn’t until he hears the bell over the door chime that he looks out. There’s a young man with a shaved head and a gray shirt on handing Krista a plate with a waffle castle on it. She blushes hard then smiles soft and angelic.

Many things run through his head trying to clarify the situation but he can only deduce one thing. The blond boy thought Krista had brought the pancake for him and he sent her back a castle. Jean recoiled and felt stupid but he didn’t want to let on how disappointed he was.

Annie, in a rare moment of kindness claps him on the shoulder and says, “Next time.”

Jean loves work but now he’s counting down until his shift ends.

It’s midday and beautiful eighty-two degrees out with a breeze that cools any possible heat. He goes out the front. Usually he left out the back because that’s where his gear was but today he just wants to go home and ask his mom to make enchiladas - heartbreak food.

He turns right towards the busses and stops short when a slight crouched figure stands. It’s the blond. “Jean?”

“Yeah.”

The blond stood awkwardly then slow and simple he spoke. “My name’s Armin. I think you sent me your phone number and a pancake?”

“Oh. Yeah. That - “ Jean scratches the back of his head. “You can forget about that if you want.”

“What?” Armin looks mortified. “Was it a mistake?”

Jean pales. “No!”

“Oh.” There’s a pause. “Good.”

Jean feels himself relax. “Did you eat it?”

“The pancake?”

“Yeah.” Armin’s smile could save lives. “It was delicious. Why a dolphin?”

Jean shrugs. “You seem like you spend a lot of time at the ocean.”

Armin doesn’t seem to think Jean’s observation is creepy. “I was hoping maybe we could hang out for a bit.” Armin’s voice wavers but it’s sure. Jean thinks it’s cute.

“Wanna grab food?”

“I just ate your pancake.” Armin’s cheeks go pink. “But maybe if we walk to the boardwalk I’ll be hungry by then?”

Jean’s smile grows wide. “Funnel cakes?”

“Funnel cakes,” Armin agrees.

They both smile at each other and turn to head towards the boardwalk finally walking on the same side of the street.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!  
> Kudos and comments are appreciated!


End file.
